Physical Sciences Division Staff Awards & Honors

October 2008

Demand Continues for Bacterial Nanowire Article

A paper on nanowires produced by Shewanella oneidensis strain MR-1 has proven quite popular in the scientific community. Enlarged View

In September 2008, ISI's Essential Science Indicators named an article co-authored by scientists from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory a hot paper. Every 2 months, ISI lists the "hot papers in science." These papers are chosen because they are frequently cited within a few years of publication. To date, more than 85 articles cite "Electrically conductive bacterial nanowires produced by Shewanella oneidensis strain MR-1 and other microorganisms" since it was published in July 2006.

The paper described the tiny connections that form between microbes to transfer electrons. The authors used instruments at the Department of Energy's EMSL, a national scientific user facility at PNNL. These instruments included scanning electron microscopes, scanning tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy, and fluorescence microscopy.

The 24 scientists that wrote the article were from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, University of Guelph in Canada, Gwangiu Institute of Science and Technology in Korea, Water Environment and Remediation Research Center in Korea, Pennsylvania State University, and the University of Southern California. At PNNL, the authors were Kevin Rosso, Alice Dohnalkova, David Culley, Bree Reed, Margie Romine, Eric Hill, Liang Shi, David Kennedy, Grigoriy Pinchuk, and Jim Fredrickson. Yuri Gorby, Svetlana Yanina, and Jeff McLean worked at PNNL when writing this paper.